Tip Of The Day #038

Tip Of The Day #038

Half the challenge when you first get into animated christmas lighting is the terminology and whats worse when you switch from one sequencer to another we change it all just to make it harder. So here are some key xLights terms defined as best i can.

– A string – generally this refers to a string of lights … but it could be multiple strings you purchased linked end to end … I generally like to think this as the number of controller outputs I am using for a model. (before you complain … yes i know there are exceptions but lets focus on the majority of cases)
– A strand – for things like trees and matrices this is a run of lights up/down/across the model.
– Strands per string – so this is the number of times a string zig zags across the model. If your string goes up and then down then strands per string is 2.
– Nodes per string – this is the number of controllable pixels you have on your string … for some strings this is the same as the number of leds … but commonly 12v strip has three leds per node.